Herrin was solid throughout the 13-lap EBC Brakes Superbike race and it resulted in his second win of the year and the eighth of his AMA Superbike career, the Georgian holding off Beaubier by .506 of a second at the finish.

Herrin’s win moved him into a tie for 22nd with Tommy Hayden and Wes Cooley on the all-time AMA Superbike win list.

“I was comfortable sitting behind Toni (Elias),” Herrin said. “From just the glance I get at the monitors (JumboTron), it’s nicer to take a glance at the monitors than it is the pit board because it just shows you exactly where they are. I could see that we had a little gap on Cameron (Beaubier), I thought. I was just drafting Toni and then I’d kind of pull up alongside of him. One of the laps, I think he thought I was trying to race him down the back straight and maybe beat him on the brakes. I saw him shake his head and maybe getting frustrated. He just rolled off, like just go. That’s not what I wanted. I wanted to keep doing what you were doing and trying to break those guys because I know our bikes were running fast this year. But somehow it ended up working out in the end. I just knew that on the last lap I wanted to make a pass somewhere that for sure he wasn’t expecting it. I think where I did it was perfect and enough to kind of get him flustered. Then his whole plan kind of goes out the window. He was probably expecting me to go in on Canada Corner and come in a little hot and then cross back underneath him. So, it worked out perfect for me.

“It kind of felt like COTA all over again. I thought I was going to be able to break him after he made a mistake with three to go. I put my head down and did a couple 12.5s, but it wasn’t enough. I’m super happy with the result, obviously. But frustrated that it’s only my second podium of the year. Two wins are great, but we need more podiums. We’re far back in the points so the rest of the year we really got to put our head down. Now that I’m comfortable on the bike we just got to put our head down and hope for the best.”

Beaubier had been in the lead trio for the majority of the race and was handed second place on a platter when Herrin’s teammate Toni Elias, the winner of Saturday’s race, crashed out of the battle in the final corner. Elias’ miscue not only gifted Beaubier second, it also put the battle back into championship battle as Beaubier gained 20 points on the championship leader and now trails Elias by just nine points, 151-142.

“Coming into this round I had a lot of confidence, to be honest,” Beaubier said. “Just given the record that we’ve had here the last few years, we’ve won quite a few races. I think I have six or seven Superbike wins here. I just love this place. I love this track. It suits my R1 really well. It suits my riding style really well. We’ve just kind of been a little off all weekend. Like I said, I really wanted to win this weekend, but coming out of here with two seconds and riding as hard as I could, like I said earlier I left it all out on the track. I did everything I could just to stay on Josh and Toni’s wheel in the race today. I can be happy with that. Unfortunately for Toni, he crashed but gave us a pretty good chunk in points because we were pretty far back going into the race this afternoon. So now I think it’s nine points, so it’s going to be a dog fight the rest of the season. Both these guys are riding incredible, along with JD (Beach) and Matty (Scholtz) and a couple other guys going into some of the rest of the tracks this year. So, it’s going to make for some really good, exciting racing and I’m looking forward to it.”

Beaubier’s teammate Garrett Gerloff finished third for the second day in a row, the Texan ending up 6.172 seconds behind Herrin. In turn, Gerloff was five seconds ahead of Attack Performance Estenson Racing Yamaha’s JD Beach.

“Honestly, I’ve got to watch the race over again because I don’t know what happened,” Gerloff said. “It was literally like I was there, felt good, dicing. We were all doing good times. Then just lost the draft. I can’t even remember where. I think it was three. I kind of ran a little bit wide in three and got just a few more bike lengths in-between me and Cameron and the draft was gone and that was it. Just shot off the back. It was kind of unexpected, I guess. It’s frustrating because I felt good. I felt like I had a good bike. Then for that to happen it just sucks. At least I was able to stay there. I figured something might happen on the last lap between these guys and it ended up being Toni’s own fault, I guess. Glad I was able to just keep it on two wheels and to get lucky today and be on the podium. Not ideal, but I’ll take it.”

Westby Racing’s Mathew Scholtz finished fifth for the second straight day, the South African ending up right on Beach’s tail.

KWR Ducati’s Kyle Wyman matched his best finish of the season, the New Yorker finishing sixth – just .069 of a second ahead of Scheibe Racing BMW’s Jake Gagne, who had M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Jake Lewis hot on his heels.

“We had a great win on Saturday and then I had the crash today because I flinched in the final turn when Cameron (Beaubier) came in,” Elias said. “I could not finish because the handlebar broke off. I congratulate Josh for his win. He has worked hard and is very deserving of this. I am sorry to my team for my mistake, but we will come back and fight again to build back our lead.”

Supersport – It’s Fong

Bobby Fong (50) leads teammate Sean Dylan Kelly (40) and Hayden Gillim in the Supersport final on Sunday. Fong won for a second time on the season.|Photo by Brian J. Nelson

In Supersport, Team Hammer’s M4 ECSTAR Suzuki squad had the measure of the field on Sunday, and its teammates Bobby Fong and Sean Dylan Kelly had a rousing battle for the win between themselves and also with Rickdiculous Racing Yamaha rider Hayden Gillim. All three of them led the 11-lap event, and in the end, Fong maneuvered his bike onto the final straight in order to break Gillim’s draft, while Kelly drafted past Gillim. Fong took the checkers and Kelly barely squeaked past Gillim to take second and shuffle Gillim to third.

“I thought it was a real good race,” Fong said. “I knew Hayden was going to be up there. He’s real strong. He has more confidence in his front end than anybody I’ve ever raced with, so I knew he was going to be up there. He’s a hard charger. I knew my teammate would be up there. I knew I wasn’t going to pull away. I was just trying to hit my marks and just tried to ride a smooth race. The last lap, I was trying to ride defensive and go inside. Fortunately, we got the win today and we got 25 points, but I’m looking forward to a lot more battles this year.”

Liqui Moly Junior Cup – Landers, Again

Rocco Landers (97) won his fifth Liqui Moly Junior Cup race of the season, besting Kevin Olmedo (14) and Dallas Daniels (69) after a close battle.|Photo by Brian J. Nelson

In Sunday’s Liqui Moly Junior Cup race, the odds-on favorite to win was Saturday’s victor Rocco Landers, and the Ninja400R.com/Norton Motorsports/Dr. Farr Kawasaki rider lived up to the hype by drafting into the lead on the final stretch to the finish line. Quarterley Racing/On Track Development Kawasaki rider Dallas Daniels led throughout the majority of the seven-lap contest, but he fell victim to Landers’ draft maneuver for the second day in a row, and on Sunday, Altus Motorsports Kawasaki rider Kevin Olmedo also snuck past Daniels, which resulted in Olmedo finishing second and Daniels taking third.

Landers had a plan set up for today’s race, which he explained: “Today, I did have a plan from about two laps till the end. Right after they passed me, I was just going to try to hang in there and see what was going to happen. Then, after I got past Dallas, I was just going to try to get as good of a run out of the last corner to get to him. It was a great race.”

At a track that favors top speed and horsepower, the expectation in MotoAmerica’s Twins Cup class was that Michael Barnes and his Quarterley Racing Ducati Monster 797 would dominate Sunday’s race. As it turned out, Barnes was at a disadvantage against the smaller-displacement bikes due to their ability to draft past the Ducati. AP MotoArts Yamaha rider Draik Beauchamp got a great jump at the start and kept himself in the lead pack throughout the eight-lap sprint. He was challenged by both Barnes and Roadracing World Young Guns Suzuki rider Alex Dumas. Beauchamp took the lead and kept it to record his first career Twins Cup victory, while Dumas’ second-place finish was his first career Twins Cup podium. Barnes finished third.

“I started off on the second row in sixth,” Beauchamp said. “My main goal was just to get up there and be part of the fight and have something for the guys out front. I got up there and I actually had more pace than I thought. I was like, okay, let’s get up there early and just keep them behind me at that point. I ran that strategy. Kept them behind me. I was like, let’s run this all the way home. So I did and we got the job done. I want to thank my team, my sponsors, everybody, my dad for busting his butt out here. I’m looking forward to the rest of the season and hopefully sitting back in this seat again.

Superstock 1000 – Mesa Leads The Title Chase

Stefano Mesa (37) held off Andrew Lee (1) at the line to win the Stock 1000 race on Sunday at Road America.|Photo by Brian J. Nelson

In MotoAmerica’s Stock 1000 class, MESA37 Racing Kawasaki’s Stefano Mesa moved up a spot from the second-place result that he got in Saturday’s race to grab the victory on Sunday. Franklin Armory/Graves Kawasaki’s Andrew Lee finished second and Ride HVMC Freeman Racing Kawasaki rider Corey Alexander was third. Ironically, neither Mesa nor Alexander have been regulars in the MotoAmerica series, and both of them finished on the AMA Supersport podium at Road America seven years ago when Mesa won.

“The bike and I worked very well this weekend, so we’re happy with the progress,” Mesa said. “Hopefully, we can keep going this season, since we’re leading the championship now.”

EBC Brakes Superbike

Josh Herrin (Suzuki)

Cameron Beaubier (Yamaha)

Garrett Gerloff (Yamaha)

JD Beach (Yamaha)

Mathew Scholtz (Yamaha)

Supersport

Bobby Fong (Suzuki)

Sean Dylan Kelly (Suzuki)

Hayden Gillim (Yamaha)

PJ Jacobsen (Yamaha)

Brandon Paasch (Yamaha)

Liqui Moly Junior Cup

Rocco Landers (Kawasaki)

Kevin Olmedo (Kawasaki)

Dallas Daniels (Kawasaki)

Damian Jigalov (Kawasaki)

Dominic Doyle (Kawasaki)

Stock 1000

Stefano Mesa (Kawasaki)

Andrew Lee (Kawasaki)

Corey Alexander (Kawasaki)

Miles Thornton (Suzuki)

Aaron Risinger (BMW)

Twins Cup

Draik Beauchamp (Yamaha)

Alex Dumas (Suzuki)

Michael Barnes (Ducati)

Kris Turner (Suzuki)

Darren James (Yamaha)

Saturday

ELKHART LAKE, WI (June 1, 2019) – Yoshimura Suzuki’s Toni Elias won his third race of the season today in the Championship at Road America, the fourth round of the 10-round MotoAmerica EBC Brakes Superbike Championship held in changing conditions in Wisconsin.

Road America MotoAmerica Results 2019

Toni Elias won his third EBC Brakes Superbike race of the season, besting Cameron Beaubier by .235 of a second.|Photo by Brian J. Nelson

Elias came out on top of a battle that featured as many as seven riders at times and whittled down to four riders by the end of the race. At the finish line, Elias was .253 of a second ahead of his championship rival Cameron Beaubier to pull 29 points clear of the Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory racing rider with six rounds and 12 races left in the title chase. Elias has 151 points to Beaubier’s 122.

Elias also earned his second pole position of the season earlier in the day during Superpole, doubling his amount of poles from a season ago. The win was the 28th Superbike victory of Elias’ career and it moved him into a tie with Ben Spies for fifth on the all-time list.

Beaubier’s teammate Garrett Gerloff was a shadow third, just .787 of a second behind Elias. He was some two seconds clear of Elias’ teammate Josh Herrin, the Georgian in the mix until the final laps when he and Elias nearly clashed, and Herrin got the worst of it. Herrin was visibly upset after the race, gesturing at his teammate on the cool-down lap. Herrin ran wide on the final lap while trying to beat Gerloff and slipped to fourth.

“We finished the race and he was super mad at me,” Elias said of Herrin. “You can understand if someone is mad with a good reason, but the reason was we were doing the same thing and we were playing the same game. If you are frustrated because I pass you and you ran wide, I ran wide too, but it’s the last lap and we brake as we could. I didn’t want to make him do a wide line or lose some positions. I’m sorry about that, but I can’t accept the way he come to me and start to yelling like this. Hey, man, calm down. No, it’s not like this. We are playing the same game. Sorry. It’s like this. Another day I will receive. It’s okay. I will shut up my mouth, but we didn’t even touch. Nobody went to the ground. Nobody ran off the track. So, sorry but this is racing. I was trying to defend my side and I don’t feel I did anything wrong. So that’s why verbally or with signals I was trying to defend myself after the race. But we did a good job as teammates. He helped me a lot for the first five or six laps. After we start to battle who arrive first in the finish line for the last five laps in case of red flag in the race. It was not only the last lap; it was the previous five laps when we start to pass each other. Then we found a lapper. I’m happy. We are doing a great job, but everybody is so fast. It’s so competitive, so close, and anything can happen. Let’s see tomorrow. I hope to have a good race tomorrow.”

Beaubier had started slowly and was shuffled well back in the lead pack before getting comfortable and moving forward.

“It was difficult,” Beaubier said. “It was tough. It was kind of an odd race. One lap we’d be down in the 2:13, 2:14 range and then the next was 2:17 or 2:18. Just going off feel, really, whoever was in front. I think both of us saw Herrin get loose one time going into turn two. I was like, ‘whoa, I don’t want to do that,’ type of thing. I was just kind of judging off the guys in front of me, because we pretty much saw mist all the way through mid-race. Then the last couple laps it wasn’t really an issue. I got shuffled back there pretty good at the beginning and just put my head down once I got by. Got a little more comfortable. To be honest, at the beginning I was not comfortable at all after crashing this morning and stuff like that. I’m happy to be on the podium. It’s not a win. It is a little bit of a bummer just because I love this track and my bike works good here. I feel like this is a really good track for me, but we’ve always got tomorrow. Hats off to this guy (Elias) and also Garrett (Gerloff). They were riding really good, same with Herrin and JD (Beach). I think JD might have had a little problem with his bike or something. It was a good, tough race. I’m ready to go tomorrow.”

For Gerloff, it was podium number four as he still seeks that elusive first EBC Brakes Superbike win. He also didn’t get the message that it was the last lap.

“There was just so much going on,” Gerloff said. “There were four or five guys there so everybody’s board was in front of the other one. It just slipped my mind. I knew it was at least two laps to go, so I was trying to put myself in a good spot. But I just didn’t know that it was the actual last lap. It didn’t matter. I was still giving it my all. It was an interesting race. It started off, everything seemed pretty good. We started going and the rain started to come down around halfway. I remember going into turn three and was kind of back in there. Then I came back, and the rear just started coming around on me. Not the best feeling, but you don’t want to lose sight of these guys. The last couple laps were dry. Everything feels pretty good with the bike. There are just a couple things that we’re going to try to face for tomorrow. But I feel good. The team and I are working awesome together. Looking forward to maybe a little more straightforward race tomorrow.”

Westby Racing’s Mathew Scholtz was fifth, some four seconds behind Herrin and racing alone as he had a 4.3-second lead on his South African countryman Cameron Petersen on the Omega Moto Yamaha YZF-R1.

Seventh place went to JD Beach, the Attack Performance Estenson Racing Yamaha rider in the mix at the front until his bike shut off with a few laps to go. Beach was able to get it going again, but then ran into clutch issues and slipped back to seventh.

Supersport polesitter Hayden Gillim grabbed his third victory of the season aboard his Rickdiculous Racing Yamaha, and in what has been a consistent theme in MotoAmerica’s middleweight class, the win did not come easily. Gillim had to fight off a fierce challenge from M4 ECSTAR Suzuki teammates Bobby Fong and Sean Dylan Kelly. Fong finished second while Kelly finished third, which was the rookie Supersport rider’s third podium result of his season.

“I wanted to try and get away, separate the group,” Gillim said. “I was able to do that, but Bobby ran me back down, and then Sean. I sat behind Bobby for a little bit because I knew I couldn’t pull away. So there was no point in me just going and burning up my tires, pitching the bike away or anything like that. I waited for the last lap and then Sean got up in there. It was a fight. It was tough. It was a really fun race. I was just happy I was able to stay in there.

In Liqui Moly Junior Cup, early-season over-dog Rocco Landers notched his fourth victory in five races over his rival Dallas Daniels, who has finished second in all four of the races that Landers has won.

Landers, who started from the pole aboard his Ninja400R.com/Norton Motorsports/Dr. Farr Kawasaki, got the holeshot, with Daniels close behind aboard his Quarterley Racing/On Track Development Kawasaki. The pair of Ninja warriors battled each other throughout the entire seven-lap sprint, and with Daniels was in the lead on the final lap. Landers made a perfect draft pass around Daniels on the run up the hill to the finish line to take the checkered flag in dramatic fashion.

Meanwhile, Altus Motorsports Kawasaki rider Kevin Olmedo was in a battle with BARTCON Racing/Farrell Performance Kawasaki rider Damian Jigalov, and Olmedo prevailed to round out the podium in third.

When asked about his strategy to make a last-lap pass on Daniels, Landers said: “I was just going corner to corner. I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was just like, let’s see what’s going to happen. Just do what we can. I was able to pull that move off, and here we are.”

Stock 1000 – May Day

Veteran Geoff May (99) won the Stock 1000 race over Stefano Mesa (37) at Road America for his first AMA win in 11 years.|Photo by Brian J. Nelson

Saturday’s Stock 1000 race saw the return of former factory Superbike contender and World Superbike rider Geoff May to the top step of the podium. It had been 11 years since the Georgian had won an AMA-sanctioned road race, and he was understandably emotional in the winner’s circle. May, who was aboard a Kawasaki sponsored by his “day-job” employer Ameris Bank, for whom he is a mortgage banker, held off MESA37 Racing’s Stefano Mesa to get the win. Third place went to Franklin Armory/Graves Kawasaki’s Andrew Lee.

“It’s amazing to be back,” May said. “I’ve been club racing. I’ve probably been racing more than you would if you were just doing MotoAmerica, racing about every two weeks in club racing. Taking some Kawasaki money and even BMW money. I was content with that for a while, thinking I’ve had my time. I’ve had my career. I had a good run. I did very well for a long time. After World Superbike everything kind of changed. The series was in a transition period. It’s harder to find sponsorship. The way that you used to get rides back in the 2000s was just by beating people. People had to hire you because if they didn’t hire you, they were going to get beat by you and then they weren’t going to get any TV time. That whole way went away. When social media came around it was more about how many likes you have and what kind of presence you have on social media. So the way I made a career and a living in road racing went away. After 16 years at that point my wife was like, ‘You know, Geoff, it’s over.’ Thank God she told me that because I wasn’t going to wreck. I went and got my mortgage license after I set up for Westby and it didn’t work out. I was like, okay, it’s over. Joined the real world and the workforce and started a new career. Then Kawasaki in ’16 came out with a bike and I was like, ‘Look! I can do this; I can race again. There’s actually money. There’s contingency. I can go win money racing bikes.’ She’s like, ‘If you can win money, you can race.’ We worked real hard for a long time in racing and I made a lot of money back when it was good, and there was no way I was going to just throw it away to go chase a dead dream. Thankfully with Kawi and also BMW the contingency allowed me to rekindle my career. Then this year with MotoAmerica in the stock class, I saw what MotoAmerica is doing and it’s like that but another level, and it is in line what I do with Ameris Bank, and they like it too. I’m trying to bring an outside industry sponsor into what I love to help. I want to see this sport grow. I’m going to race as long as I can. It might be this year. It might be ten more years. I don’t know. But I want to see this sport grow, and so I’m trying to bring money into the sport and ideally build my own team, a bring a team into the paddock. We’ll see what happens. Everything is going on track right now. Everything looks good. I’m really happy with everything MotoAmerica is doing. The TV is fantastic. I was begging for that 10 years ago. All of us were. The golf channel can make golf look amazing. Why can’t we show what motorcycles are actually doing? And you guys finally did it. It’s something that you can invest in going forward, I believe.”

EBC Brakes Superbike

Toni Elias (Suzuki)

Cameron Beaubier (Yamaha)

Garrett Gerloff (Yamaha)

Josh Herrin (Suzuki)

Mathew Scholtz (Yamaha)

Supersport

Hayden Gillim (Yamaha)

Bobby Fong (Suzuki)

Sean Dylan Kelly (Suzuki)

Richie Escalante (Yamaha)

Bryce Prince (Yamaha)

Liqui Moly Junior Cup

Rocco Landers (Kawasaki)

Dallas Daniels (Kawasaki)

Kevin Olmedo (Kawasaki)

Damian Jigalov (Kawasaki)

Dominique Doyle (Kawasaki)

Stock 1000

Geoff May (Kawasaki)

Stefano Mesa (Kawasaki)

Andrew Lee (Kawasaki)

Travis Wyman (BMW)

Michael Gilbert (Kawasaki)

Friday

ELKHART LAKE, WI (May 31, 2019) – Yoshimura Suzuki’s Toni Elias emerged from the Friday fray as the fastest of the EBC Brakes Superbike men, but that was before his times were disallowed from the final session for “loss of custody of the bike at the end of session.” That miscue by the current Superbike Championship points leader dropped him to third in the combined times and allowed Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Racing’s Cameron Beaubier to move to the top in the Dunlop Championship at Road America.

Road America MotoAmerica Results 2019

Cameron Beaubier ended up with the fastest lap in the EBC Superbike class on Friday at Road America. Beaubier will lead the way into Saturday’s Superpole session.|Photo by Brian J. Nelson

“This morning, first practice, I was a little slow to get up to speed and the wind was kind of affecting everyone, blowing us around,” Beaubier said. “That was something to get used to. All in all, it wasn’t too bad and we led the first session by a little bit. Second practice, made a couple of changes chassis-wise and struggled a little bit with a couple of things that we’re going to work on for tomorrow. I noticed Toni (Elias) was a chunk faster than us, like three or four tenths, so definitely we have to do our homework tonight and come out swinging tomorrow. All in all, felt like I wasn’t piecing the track together like I was last year. My times were slower than what they were last year on Friday. I wasn’t super comfortable, but I’m still happy to be up with those guys, looking at the positives. I’m curious to see what the weather is going to be like tomorrow. We will see what happens, but no matter what we will be ready to go.”

Elias had ended up on top via his 2:12.444 lap on Friday afternoon, the Spaniard besting Beaubier by .421 of a second. Beaubier, meanwhile, had put his Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory Racing YZF-R1 in second, leading his teammate Garrett Gerloff by .308 of a second. But that was before Elias was penalized.

The Spaniard encountered electrical issues and made his way back down toward turn five on an ill-running motorcycle. He then left the track and rode the bike back to the paddock. At that point, he was in violation of the rules and his lap times from the session were disallowed. Elias, with his 2:13.603 from the morning session, was dropped to third fastest on the day.

“Today went pretty well,” Elias said, prior to learning of his penalty. “The bike is pretty different than last year. We move in the same direction as last year to see if all the pumping problems from last year can come back for this race. The problems of pumping came back when we did the same moves as last year so it’s good to know and not on Sunday. We found out on Friday so for this afternoon we moved in another direction so it works so well because in five or six laps we are running in 12s (2:12 lap times) very consistent and very comfortable. We need to improve if we want to continue like this because the other rivals will improve too for tomorrow. I’m happy. We had an electrical problem because we did just six or seven laps. The first time I could come back to the pit, but the second time I couldn’t come back to the pit. The bike stopped, I switched the bike on and then I had to take the bike to the track but only with 2000 rpm. I hear that you cannot do that, so what do I have to do? I have to stop the bike and it wasn’t working so being in the middle of the way was not okay. What I did in VIR was not okay. Today I brought the bike to the pit and I hope everything will be fine.”

Westby Racing’s Mathew Scholtz ended the day fourth fastest, one spot better than Yoshimura Suzuki’s Josh Herrin. M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Bobby Fong and Sean Dylan Kelly gave the team a one-two finish in the Supersport provisional qualifying session on Friday afternoon. Fong was best, turning in a 2:19.814 on his final lap to snatch provisional pole from Kelly, the Floridian ending up .575 of a second behind. Rickdiculous Racing’s Hayden Gillim ended Friday third fastest with championship points leader PJ Jacobsen fourth on the Celtic HSBK Racing Yamaha. MP13 Racing’s Josh Hayes, the four-time AMA Superbike Champion, ended the day fifth fastest.

Ninja400R.com/Norton Motorsports/Dr. Farr’s Rocco Landers put a half a second between himself and his closest rival Dallas Daniels in advance of Saturday’s final qualifying session for the Liqui Moly Junior Cup class. The rest of the class finds itself in a hole, with Altus Motorsports’ Kevin Olmedo third, but 1.7 seconds behind Landers, who has won three of the first four races so far in 2019.

Quarterley Racing’s Michael Barnes led Riderz Law Racing’s Kris Turner to lead the only Twins Cup practice session of the day.